Back to School and Blogging and Bad Backs

I love my boy, but he is not the most photogenic fellow. Here’s the best picture I got for his first day of first grade this morning.

Doesn’t he look a bit like this emoticon?

I’m not a big fan of emoticons, but I find that particular one pretty useful from day to day. It might be something for my headstone when I die…

Eliot’s back went out last week, which was not fun for either of us. And I might not have been the most compassionate 8-month pregnant wife while he spent his days convalescing on the floor. (You try and put somebody’s socks on with a large watermelon strapped to your belly with the air conditioning set to an economical 80 degrees — and get back to me about your compassion levels.) I even gave Eliot a hard time about eating a large chocolate bar (“This is not part of the new anti-imflammatory diet that keeps you off the floor!”). I was promptly struck down by the God of Symphony Bars and Compassion and managed to pull something in my own back running out at Bandera on Saturday. (Dang watermelon!) I spent yesterday hobbling around the house like an 94 year-old granny. Who would have thought not being able to run on a garage treadmill could make someone so grumpy? (Certainly not Eliot — but then he had hydrocodone, steroids, and high dose ibuprofen to mitigate his pain.) I’m on the mend today and I’ll venture out onto the mill in about an hour. And I’m counting today’s run as Sunday’s run — because I was looking forward to crossing off my 45-mile weekly mileage goal almost as much as I’m looking forward to delivering this baby in October.

Have any of you used a balance board to increase ankle strength? And anybody used Petzl’s NAO headlamp with its “REACTIVE LIGHTING technology?” “The rechargeable NAO headlamp adapts its two high power LEDs instantly and automatically to the lighting needs…”

We have the NAO headlamp. I have only used it once for a long run before work. The battery ran out on me and it is the kind that you use a USB to charge so you need to carry an extra battery pack. And when it goes out, it goes out. I mean like within 5 minutes of the first blink it was completely dead. It was brighter than my other lights though – until it went dead – then it was much, much dimmer 🙂 Jason said it does not work well running in town due to all the traffic light.

For ankle strength, we recently got a slackline. I think it would be even better than a balance board since it is dynamic. I think I have a PR of 4 steps so far. Jason of course can walk all the way across and back and is working on doing it with his eyes closed. Anyway, more fun than a balance board and could be used by the whole family (baby Howard can learn to crawl across it and be the most balanced baby ever.) I have used balance boards in the clinic for ankle strengthening though, an advantage of the balance board would be portability and you could use it indoors as well.

You don’t even know how happy you made Eliot with that slackline recommendation. I’m pretty sure we have one stashed in the garage. Eliot’s sickeningly good at it too. Misspent youth. We can set it up for the camp after we have everyone sign waivers about ankle breaks.
Very good to know about the NAO battery. Thankfully I don’t run in town ever. 🙂

I have a NAO light. The battery/head cord are a little bulky, but I love that it is USB rechargeable. The brightest setting kills the battery pretty quickly, but I find the second setting to be brighter than any other lamp I have and it has lasted all through the night for me at two pacing gigs this summer. If you look up and down quickly, you can see the light “react” but otherwise, I don’t notice it at all. It is definitely my “go to” light these days.